Abstract

Thomas Nagel, in three works that span two decades, sets forth his views on human absurdity. This dissertation critically examines these views and arrives at five general conclusions. ;The first concerns Nagel's criticisms of what he takes to be the "standard arguments for absurdity." In all, Nagel discusses four such arguments and offers what seem to be knock-down refutations of each. I argue, however, that upon reflection all of these refutations turn out to be wanting and, consequently, the so-called standard arguments for absurdity remain standing. ;The second conclusion the dissertation reaches concerns the matter of interpretation. In the three works in which he discusses absurdity, Nagel suggests that human absurdity consists in a conspicuous discrepancy between pretension and reality. I argue, however, that what Nagel takes the pretension and reality to be changes over time, and even changes once within a single work. The result is that he ends up presenting a total of four doctrines of absurdity. I argue that he does so, despite the fact that he himself gives the impression that in all his writings on absurdity he presents but one doctrine, and despite the fact that none of his critics suggests that he offers four doctrines either. ;The third conclusion the dissertation reaches has to do not with interpretation, but with evaluation. In the chapters I set out Nagel's four doctrines of absurdity, I also evaluate these doctrines. I argue that, though ingenious and alluring, each of the four doctrines fails to show that human existence is absurd. ;In view of these first three conclusions, it may seem as though I do not think much, if anything, of what Nagel has to say about absurdity. However, as it turns out, I do believe Nagel has some things right. In particular, I think his notion of "conspicuous discrepancy" helps clarify the general concept of absurdity. This is the fourth conclusion the dissertation reaches. I explain that we may come to understand better the distinction between 'meaninglessness' and 'absurdity' with Nagel's notion of conspicuous discrepancy in mind. Further, we may, with this notion in mind, come to understand better cases in which propositions and sentences are absurd and cases in which they are not. ;The fifth and final conclusion the dissertation arrives at is that while Nagel fails to establish a particular conspicuous discrepancy between pretension and reality, if he had, that probably would have been sufficient to show that our lives are absurd. In other words, this formal condition of existential absurdity does itself seem plausible. If so, we might try to think of particular clashes between pretensions and realities that Nagel himself has not considered in the effort to come up with a credible doctrine of absurdity which, though not Nagel's, is Nagelian. I end the dissertation by suggesting one such doctrine